Swatching...

I have been swatching for my next projects and I need an opinion. Below is a swatch for a pair of Endpaper Mitts. I haven't done that much colorwork knitting, so I wanted to practice the two handed technique and see how holding the yarn in different hands affected the colorwork. I've heard rumors of yarn dominance and I wanted to prove it to myself. I didn't think it would make a huge difference, but check it out:

Top motif: Dark purple = background color, held in right hand
Middle motif: Dark purple = background color, held in left hand
Bottom motif: Dark purple = pattern color, held in left hand

So basically, the top and middle motifs are knit exactly the same way, except I'm carrying the yarn in opposite hands. Do you see how different they look! The yarn held in the left hand is definitely dominant. Check this out for another example. Yarn dominance!?! Who knew it would make such a huge difference.

Anyway, my question is, which motif do you like the best? Which color should be the background and which should be the pattern yarn? And which should be dominate? I already have an opinion, but I'm curious what other people think.

What say you?

Yarn Diet.

Hello. My name is Amanda and I'm a yarnaholic.

The time comes in every knitter's life, when the stash acquisition gets out of hand. A skein of sock yarn here, some Silky Malabrigo here, two skeins of lace weight there, souvenir Koigu from Philly, two sweaters worth of Felted Tweed... I must stop the insanity. There are so many beautiful yarns in the world and somehow... someway... I keep forgetting that I have an amazing sampling of theses fantastic fibers right in front of my face! Then a scary thing happened. I got mixed up with the Sundara crowd. They are a persuasive bunch. Always snapping up her yarn so fast that it seems like the perfect unattainable yarny fix. I want some! I NEED SOME! So I signed up for a season (or two) of her Seasons subscription. I have commited to stash enhancement of the Sundara kind until next March. This moment of weakness was the last straw. Therefore, March 2009 is my self-imposed deadline. I cannot stash any yarn until the last of my Sundara shipments are done. This is going to be hard, but I have to do it. This isn't even a financial thing. I don't mind spending my hard-earned income on fancy string. It's just the quantity is getting out of hand. I have so many awesome projects waiting for my attention in the stash. Maybe I'll finally get around to them.

I do have to make a small exception though. I'm going to make every attempt at creating most of my Christmas presents from my stash. However, if someone requests some thing that I don't have the yarn for, I can buy it. BUT THAT IS IT. The only exception. Sock yarn counts in this yarn diet. All yarn counts in this diet.

I declare this publicly only to make it more real. Sorry for the boring post. Here's a puppy for ya. Meet Winnie.

She's Jenna's absolutly adorable new pup.

Oh, in other sad news, my D40 is sick. You can actually see it in the photo of Winnie above. There is a dead pixel in the sensor just right of middle that turns in to a lovely neon green streak at low shutter speeds. So ugly. I sent it into Nikon to get fixed, but I'm thinking of upgrading to another body. Perhaps a D80? Hmmmm... another reason for the yarn diet...

Par-tay!

I had a little blocking party tonight.

I finally blocked my Good Luck Lady Sweater and I'm terribly frightened that it grew. A lot. I hope that it's just a skewed perspective on the floor that is making it look so big. Yeeks. I also finished the little yellow shrug. It was really simple and I threw in some puff sleeves to spice it up. Now I have to find a button or sparkly pin to finish it up.

The mitered mittens were a lot of fun to make. I finally figured out what the awesome handspun yarn I bought from zero wanted to be. First I tried Shag from Knitting New Scarves. I didn't like it so much... it did nothing to emphasis the yarn.

Then I tried the Morning Surf scarf that was made specially for handspun yarn. No dice. Me no likey. To stringy or something...

Finally, I turned to EZ... my first true EZ project! (One could argue that the Good Luck Lady sweater was an EZ inspired knit...) I was a bit daunted by the pithy mitten instructions at first, but I figured it out and look how pretty!

I lurve them so much!!! They are so warm and toasty. And look at the pretty color shifts!!! I will model them for you when they are dry.

Oh and real quick, a modeled pic of my Shetland Triangle:

And finally, I think it's time for a haircut. That is all. Good night!